Old God question

Are they truly immortal?

I mean, I'm just thinking here, but the Titans didn't kill them because i'm assuming they are similar to a cancer on the planet, hurting them will in turn hurt the planet. But that doesn't mean theyre immortal. Like anything else, overtime these things lose hold as it is apparent they have.

Okay okay, sure, you can listen to the faceless ones (biased as it gets when it comes to Old God fans) who told you that you can't truly kill an Old God. OR...you could think about it this way. The Old Gods are able to be destroyed, and it was the link between the curse of flesh and the Old Gods which prevented the Titans from destroying the Old Gods. The Titans must have thought that the Old Gods were acting with some symbiotic sort of relationship and killing them would have doomed the races of Azeroth, and maybe the planet itself.

As far as the player knows and from the player can see. C'thun is dead. Yogg-Saron is dead. Ysaarj is dead. We have no indication in game that these entities will ever revive on their own terms. As the players end Yogg/C'thun, we see nothing to tell us that they are anything but dead, nothing of course aside from the mindless banter of the spawns of the old gods themselves. (Which, if you were trying to be threatening, you of course would douse yourself in mystery.)

Another note.

The titans have been wrong before, let's stop jumping to conclusions that the Old Gods are immortal based upon what Titans have told us, given that in their infinite power, they still are not perfect. The Titan's are advanced far beyond any of the races of Azeroth, but that does not mean that they truly understand the nature of every malevolent entity they encounter in their quest for order.

They aren't immortal, the titans themselves killed one, and thats how they learned that killing them is bad. And sure you could argue that the titans might be wrong, but the Klaxxi say the the same story, and they side with the dead old god.

Also, the player is told that C'thun didn't die the first time, he was able to live on inside Cho'gall. It would be assumed that the player would then understand that they could live on in other forms, or at least be able to transform states (ie: Ya'sha and the Sha)

They aren't immortal, the titans themselves killed one, and thats how they learned that killing them is bad. And sure you could argue that the titans might be wrong, but the Klaxxi say the the same story, and they side with the dead old god.

Ysaarj is the only old god who when he was killed did anything remotely unfortunate to the area surrounding him. The Sha...which we have wiped out. The Klaxxi simply side with an entity they believe to be truly powerful. I don't want to bring religion into this to much, but thats how I think of the Klaxxi, they're really just kind of worshipping Old Gods and having faith in their power without actually knowing the full extent of their power.

Immortality in Warcraft means firstly that you can't die of Old Age, Cenarius / Elemental Lords were Immortal too but they still can be killed under the right conditions.

In my opinion, Old Gods can be killed BUT i think their death simply has horrific consequences.

I've posted a similiar speculation in a another thread, when the Titans killed Y'shaarj they realised that the Old Gods don't simply die without doing some really horrible, for example i think that Yogg's Death allowed DW to trigger the Cataclysm, though only Yoggs deathquote points at this, this theory overall makes quite some sense to me.

If you kill another Old God, something worse may happen than the Cataclysm or the that the lands become cursed like Pandaria.

If this is true, killing all Old Gods may have killed Azeroth, if their Death have such damaging backlashes.

Slightly offtopic, personally i think Y'shaarj may have been the weakest Old God so far, he got killed by an Mogu army, though you don't know what it took to defeat the other Old Gods, i'm not sure if the Old Gods were that weak that you could just overwhelm them with mindless constructs.

Too often, we are mistaken for druidic types. perhaps that's true for some shaman, but do not let yourself be plagued by the ignorant belief that we are always peaceful.
Nothing about what I do is harmonious. I command the elements to my will. There is nothing offered in return. I would have it no other way.

The Old God's 'cannot die' thing seems to stem mainly from them being really hard to kill, even after their body is destroyed. Y'Shaarj's heart still bled corruption thousands of years after he was destroyed by the Titans, his remnants haunted the land as a dark curse and later as the Sha, and his heart was revived and still seemed to contain the Old God's essence, fragments of his mind. In the aftermath of Siege, it seems like what's left of Y'Shaarj is ultimately dispersed completely, so take their 'we do not die' spiel with a grain of salt. They do die - it's just really, really hard to kill them.

Originally Posted by Nomial17

As far as the player knows and from the player can see. C'thun is dead. Yogg-Saron is dead. Ysaarj is dead. We have no indication in game that these entities will ever revive on their own terms. As the players end Yogg/C'thun, we see nothing to tell us that they are anything but dead, nothing of course aside from the mindless banter of the spawns of the old gods themselves. (Which, if you were trying to be threatening, you of course would douse yourself in mystery.)

They didn't wrap C'Thun up quite that tidily. Cho'Gall transformed into his mutated state by conducting rituals in Ahn'Qiraj near C'Thun's corpse, which still radiating all kinds of dark energy and sinister whisperings. Also, there was series of Silithus quests on the PTR that indicated C'Thun's influence was somehow affecting the night elf outpost there. Nothing was ever shown in the live game, but it's clear that Blizzard was still thinking about having C'THun do something.

Also, it was somewhat implied by Blizzard's devs that C'Thun and Yogg-Saron's death may have begun the Cataclysm - like it wouldn't have happened otherwise. At any rate, just because we haven't yet encountered any horrible far-reaching world-poisoning consequences of Yogg-Saron and C'Thun's demise, doesn't mean we never will.

Ysaarj is the only old god who when he was killed did anything remotely unfortunate to the area surrounding him. The Sha...which we have wiped out. The Klaxxi simply side with an entity they believe to be truly powerful. I don't want to bring religion into this to much, but thats how I think of the Klaxxi, they're really just kind of worshipping Old Gods and having faith in their power without actually knowing the full extent of their power.

Im not really sure what you are asking then...u asked if they are immortal, but then say one was killed....

But on how the titans must have known the Old Gods would have destroyed the planet..the blood of all the old gods is what causes the corruption. Yogg has Saronite, as well as the congealed bloods in Grizzly Hills by the failed World Tree. N'zoth has the blood that was all over Deathwing and pools of it wherever he was(Deepholm). Yajhjjjs(however its spelled) has the Sha born of his blood. C'thun was impaled in what would later become AQ, his blood infecting wildlife there and drawing his minions to him.

It also explains why the titans set the bronze dragons on guard duty at AQ, they must have done some tests and knew that a dead Old God means blood reactions. Not enough blood for a visible reaction=C'thun probably not dead, so bronze dragons.

Old Gods are really difficult to kill. Plus, their true form and size is humongous and stretching across lots of the planet. They cannot truly be killed without planetary re-origination, which would kill every living thing.

Soooo....does that mean that the death of Y'saarj triggers the inevitable return of the Burning Legion next xpac? Or am I going off-topic here? If anything, it might end uo being Azshara and her corruption from an 'Old God in the depths of the ocean' as the next explanation to her downfall.

Soooo....does that mean that the death of Y'saarj triggers the inevitable return of the Burning Legion next xpac? Or am I going off-topic here? If anything, it might end uo being Azshara and her corruption from an 'Old God in the depths of the ocean' as the next explanation to her downfall.

Old Gods have nothing to do with the legion. They would be enemies, anyway. Old Gods are more of an universal environmental hazard.

Immortality in Warcraft means firstly that you can't die of Old Age, Cenarius / Elemental Lords were Immortal too but they still can be killed under the right conditions.

In my opinion, Old Gods can be killed BUT i think their death simply has horrific consequences.

I've posted a similiar speculation in a another thread, when the Titans killed Y'shaarj they realised that the Old Gods don't simply die without doing some really horrible, for example i think that Yogg's Death allowed DW to trigger the Cataclysm, though only Yoggs deathquote points at this, this theory overall makes quite some sense to me.

If you kill another Old God, something worse may happen than the Cataclysm or the that the lands become cursed like Pandaria.

If this is true, killing all Old Gods may have killed Azeroth, if their Death have such damaging backlashes.

Slightly offtopic, personally i think Y'shaarj may have been the weakest Old God so far, he got killed by an Mogu army, though you don't know what it took to defeat the other Old Gods, i'm not sure if the Old Gods were that weak that you could just overwhelm them with mindless constructs.

This. Immortality is very iffy in WoW lore. Dragons, Old Gods, Ancients/Loa, and perhaps even Titans can all be physically destroyed, but spirits and consciousness cannot be destroyed. Mostly, things live until mortal wounds. Dragons (and Draenei, it seems) live forever and ever, until something causes them to die.

Simple answer: Yes, they are immortal.
Complicated answer: Their bodies are not, but their consciousness/spirit tends to live on in the physical realm or other realms, causing problems later on.

3 hints to surviving MMO-C forums:
1.) If you have an opinion, someone will say that it is wrong
2.) If you have a source, there will be people who refuse to believe it
3.) If you use logic, it will be largely ignored
Btw: *Tanaan, *Farahlon, *Arakkoa. Not that hard.

I mean, I'm just thinking here, but the Titans didn't kill them because i'm assuming they are similar to a cancer on the planet, hurting them will in turn hurt the planet. But that doesn't mean theyre immortal. Like anything else, overtime these things lose hold as it is apparent they have.

Okay okay, sure, you can listen to the faceless ones (biased as it gets when it comes to Old God fans) who told you that you can't truly kill an Old God. OR...you could think about it this way. The Old Gods are able to be destroyed, and it was the link between the curse of flesh and the Old Gods which prevented the Titans from destroying the Old Gods. The Titans must have thought that the Old Gods were acting with some symbiotic sort of relationship and killing them would have doomed the races of Azeroth, and maybe the planet itself.

As far as the player knows and from the player can see. C'thun is dead. Yogg-Saron is dead. Ysaarj is dead. We have no indication in game that these entities will ever revive on their own terms. As the players end Yogg/C'thun, we see nothing to tell us that they are anything but dead, nothing of course aside from the mindless banter of the spawns of the old gods themselves. (Which, if you were trying to be threatening, you of course would douse yourself in mystery.)

Another note.

The titans have been wrong before, let's stop jumping to conclusions that the Old Gods are immortal based upon what Titans have told us, given that in their infinite power, they still are not perfect. The Titan's are advanced far beyond any of the races of Azeroth, but that does not mean that they truly understand the nature of every malevolent entity they encounter in their quest for order.

dangit people stop confusing immortal and invincible or unkillable! immortal is simply not dieing of old age, aka "eternal life" or "fountain of youth", it DOES NOT keep you from dieing if someone sticks an arrow in you or poisons you or some other non age related form of death. that said by the ACTUAL DEFINITION of immortal, yes the old gods are as far as the lore has shown, or atleast they're extremely long lived.

recap: immortal means no age related death, invincible means cannot be hurt or killed through non age related causes, they are not the same thing. old gods: immortal not invincible as they COULD be killed by the titans but are too deeply rooted into the world for it to happen without destroying the planet...so all we manage to do is keep them from escaping imprisonment

...at this point it's almost guaranteed that "war in warcraft" is garrosh getting on his incompetent podium to declare yet another group his enemy for the crime of breathing his air, alliance saying this is horde favoritism, and the more....special....yes.. let's go with special... horde players seeing garrosh as a god because he lets them attack the alliance players who keep saying that out being led by a moron is horde favoritism.

dangit people stop confusing immortal and invincible or unkillable! immortal is simply not dieing of old age, aka "eternal life" or "fountain of youth", it DOES NOT keep you from dieing if someone sticks an arrow in you or poisons you or some other non age related form of death. that said by the ACTUAL DEFINITION of immortal, yes the old gods are as far as the lore has shown, or atleast they're extremely long lived.

recap: immortal means no age related death, invincible means cannot be hurt or killed through non age related causes, they are not the same thing. old gods: immortal not invincible as they COULD be killed by the titans but are too deeply rooted into the world for it to happen without destroying the planet...so all we manage to do is keep them from escaping imprisonment

Actually, Old Gods are immortal, not invincible, as they can be defeated, subdued and forced into a dormant state (like Y'shaarj was after his def) but seem to be able to live on and slowly regenerate.

I've also never found the "The Titans didn't kill the Old Gods because it would destroy azeroth" argument to be rather flimsy at best. It's never actually been confirmed, it's just something Brann interpreted the Tribunal as saying, not what the Tribunal itself says.

Kaddrak yells: Accessing. Creators arrived to extirpate symbiotic infection. Assessment revealed that Old God infestation had grown malignant. Excising parasites would result in loss of host--

Exising =/= Eliminating

Not to mention the fact that the Titans clearly have no problem destroying all of Azeroth, since that's the entire purpose of the re-origination machine; To break the planet and all life on it down into particles and the reassemble it into it's original form.

I am pretty confident that the Titans fought the Old Gods, realized they had no way of actually killing them, and implemented the re-orgination protocol as a way of resetting the planet and forcing the Old Gods back into a weaker state.

I've also never found the "The Titans didn't kill the Old Gods because it would destroy azeroth" argument to be rather flimsy at best. It's never actually been confirmed, it's just something Brann interpreted the Tribunal as saying, not what the Tribunal itself says.

Brann Bronzebeard yells: If they killed the Old Gods Azeroth would have been destroyed.
Kaddrak yells: Correct.

Originally Posted by Soratrox

Exising =/= Eliminating

Not to mention the fact that the Titans clearly have no problem destroying all of Azeroth, since that's the entire purpose of the re-origination machine; To break the planet and all life on it down into particles and the reassemble it into it's original form.

I am pretty confident that the Titans fought the Old Gods, realized they had no way of actually killing them, and implemented the re-orgination protocol as a way of resetting the planet and forcing the Old Gods back into a weaker state.

But of course, like anything involving the Old Gods, this is just a speculative theory.

Do you not know what a failsafe is? They didn't want to do it initially because they didn't want to start over and kill everything if they didn't have to. The blowing up of Azeroth into base components was a last resort if Old God containment failed.

Not wiped out. Subdued. The Sha are emotions made flesh - they can't be 'killed'. Its why the Pandaren try to live peaceful tranquil lives, or are highly focused and disciplined warrior-monks. The only way to keep them down is to not get carried away with negative emotion.

Which does lead to the question "how do we defeat the Sha of Violence by hitting it with swords?" But hey, gameplay reasons.

No, i meant immortal. Immortal and invincible mean the same thing depending upon the context you use them in. The definition of Immortal is the ability to live forever. To me that definition doesn't only mean by age, but by the ability to live forever. I think it makes more sense for their consciousness to live on forever, in a manner that destroying their physical bodies simply means that they are unable to cause direct destruction but instead do it through subjugation and other dark magics.

And yes, I remember that script at the end of whichever dungeon, but as I said, the Titan's have been wrong quite a few times. I find it likely that they were again wrong and simply didn't understand the relationship between the Curse of Flesh and the Old Gods.

Another possible scenario is that The Curse of Flesh is linked to a single Old God and the Titans were unable to discern which Old God was the cause. It's possible that killing the Old God who was using or enforcing the Curse of Flesh may have lead to the downfall of those who were infected (everyone).

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Durandro

Not wiped out. Subdued. The Sha are emotions made flesh - they can't be 'killed'. Its why the Pandaren try to live peaceful tranquil lives, or are highly focused and disciplined warrior-monks. The only way to keep them down is to not get carried away with negative emotion.

Which does lead to the question "how do we defeat the Sha of Violence by hitting it with swords?" But hey, gameplay reasons.

I'm pretty sure we destroyed them. I feel as though Sha are emotions made flesh, but it's like the Sha's were individual beings at their creation, imagine several persona's split from a single entity, they were just empowered through emotions which allowed them to grow so large. And for your Sha of Violence question, it seems as though the Sha gains power over time, not instantly, so it would take a massive amount of power/violence at one time to overpower the growing violence.